Yandex.Money Brings Apple Pay to Customers

November 1, 2016

Yandex.Money, the largest online payment service in Russia, brings its users Apple Pay, which is transforming mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay in stores, apps and on the web.

Yandex.Money users can now pay via Apple Pay by adding their plastic or virtual prepaid Yandex.Money cards to Apple Wallet. When a user pays with Apple Pay using a Yandex.Money Mastercard, the money is deducted from the user's Yandex.Money account, the same as when he pays with a Yandex.Money e-wallet or bank card. Customers can easily add their Yandex.Money card to Apple Pay from either the Apple Wallet app or Yandex.Money mobile app for iOS. Yandex.Money has issued more than 500,000 plastic cards and 11 million virtual MasterCards.

«At Yandex.Money, we are trying to make innovative payment technology accessible to all users regardless of the bank they use. In fact, users don't have to be clients of a bank at all. With Yandex.Money Apple users can now make easy, secure and private payments with Apple Pay — all they have to do is open an e-wallet and add a virtual MasterCard. Consumers can refill the card's balance using a card issued by another bank; with cash at a mobile retail outlet, payment kiosk, ATM; or by any other payment method. Issuing a virtual card is very easy and can be done online using the Yandex.Money mobile app,» says Alla Savchenko, Director of Products at Yandex.Money.

Security and privacy are at the core of Apple Pay. When consumers use a card with Apple Pay, the actual card details are not stored on the device, nor on Apple servers. Instead, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in the Secure Element on the user's device. Each transaction is authorized using a unique one-time dynamic security code.

Apple Pay is easy to set up and users will continue to receive all of the rewards and beneﬁts that come with Yandex.Money plastic cards. In brick-and-mortar stores, Apple Pay works with iPhone SE, iPhone 6 and later, and Apple Watch.

Online shopping in apps and on websites accepting Apple Pay is as simple as the touch of a finger using Touch ID, so there's no need to manually fill out lengthy payment forms or repeatedly type in shipping and billing information. Users can pay for online goods and services in apps or Safari using iPhone 6 and later, iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini 3 and later. Users can also pay with Apple Pay in Safari on any Mac introduced in or after 2012 running macOS Sierra, using their iPhone 6 or later or Apple Watch to confirm the payment.

In the near future, online stores and other merchants who accept payments via Yandex.Checkout, Russia's leading payment service provider, will have the ability to offer consumers fast and convenient payment via Apple Pay. Currently, more than 76,000 online stores across the globe use Yandex.Checkout.

About Yandex.Money

Yandex.Money is the largest electronic payments service in Russia, according to a 2016 survey by TNS. The service is the joint venture of the search engine Yandex (NASDAQ: YNDX), and Sberbank. Yandex.Money offers consumers easy, safe, and reliable methods of paying online on its own site and mobile app. The service hosts about 28 million user accounts with about 15,000 new accounts opened daily.

More than 4 million users have downloaded the Yandex.Money mobile app. 35% of them use an iOS device. Using the app, they can transfer funds via iMessage, pay bills — such as utilities, internet, mobile services — make loan payments, access their most frequent payments, and more. Users can also download the Yandex.Money app on Apple Watch. This allows them to pay online without having to get out their smartphones. All they have to do is select the payment they need from among their Favorites and confirm the transaction. In the last year, payments made via mobile devices have doubled in number and now make up 20% of all payment volume on Yandex.Money.

Yandex.Money also offers online merchants Yandex.Checkout. The service allows merchants to accept all the online payment methods most popular among Russians: credit cards, e-wallets, mobile billing through the top Russian providers, and cash via over 250,000 cash-acceptance points all over the country and CIS. Currently, more than 76,000 online stores across the globe use Yandex.Checkout.